Varie-Whated?

I've never worked with variegated fibre before and so I'm learning a lot in my rose medallion sachet. I usually do cross stitch using the Danish Method and the loop start neither of these methods work with variegated stranded cotton.

Firstly I had to learn how to do single stitching cross stitch the English Method on linen. As the kit pattern politely instructed me:

When working with multicoloured threads always complete each cross stitch as you go or the colour of the top and bottom stitches may vary, and make the work look "muddy".

They also included a wee picture of how to do the English Method but it was on aida! So I had to find a site showing you how to do it on linen, the article Building a Better Cross Stitch is great.

Another thing with variegated thread is that you have to work out where to lay the sections of colour. I have tried to lay the sections of colour symmetrically when they need to be but they will never be perfect.

You also have to think about where you cut the thread and start the stitches again. When you cut the thread its best to do in the middle of a colour section like the black line in the picture to the right. So when you finish the length you make sure you start the stitches from where you cut from the main lot of thread and rather than put the thread in the needle as this will be the last bit of thread you use.

So what's this tacking bizo?

I started my rose sachet kit yesterday and go a bit confused by the instructions. I was asked to tack halfway along the vertical length of the linen, then halfway of the horizontal to create a T and that when stitching any lines to always use backstitch. As I know very little about sewing (the only things I made were in 'fabric technology' and a few tube style hijabs) I didn't realise what tacking stitch was. I thought backstitching would be a bit odd in a T on the back of the sachet but I thought a line on the bottom would look fine so I did that. It took a while and it was a bit tricky as you have to try to start and end the back stitching around a raw edge which I haven't done before.


When I came to the I part of the T, I thought that I shouldn't do it. So I looked up tacking on the interweb and (of course) found an entry on Wikipedia that showed me what it is. Tacking is the process of making a temporary stitch to give an indicator line and then remove it (I'm sure everyone knows that but me). I also called the store that made the kit to check I had the right idea, and I did. They were really friendly, it was nice to have confirmation that I'm on the right track. So I tacked up the I for the T in grey and I decided that the backstitch will look great on the bottom to add some interest so I didn't feel bad about my error. I also realised that the tack is there as the middle line to place the cross stitched bit in the right place and is actually on the side that the rose medallion cross stitch is.

This is what I've got so far, I would take a pic but it probably wouldn't turn out great but anyway I don't have the cam to comp cord to connect my photo to my blogo :(

However I have also descovered that the pattern produces a sachet with a plain back! Can you say yucky! I mean I'm not going to do my first finished piece of cross stitch and leave the back plain. With the recent reading of the Snippets and Stash Blog I see that the essence of finishing is the back so why would I want a plain linen back. I could use some purple paint using a plastic stencil I have from a DMC pillow kit to decorate the back. This might not be the best idea however as I've already started stitching that might get messy and stuff up my sachet. Or I could just do my initials at the back. That's what I'm thinking right now. If I wanted to be really crazy I could do the cross stitch again using a different variegated thread, which would look good but would double the project time and make me less likely to make another sachet.